CrazeeMagnet

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

So a famous cyclist has openly admitted that he lied about doping, destroyed fellow competitor's careers because of that, and gave cycling a bad name
Using the current mindset of many Americans, Government should now ban law-abiding riders from owning bicycles.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Snuck out for a frozen flight last week. I was flying my foamie Parkzone P-51 RC (lightweight foam warbird) so just went across the street to a school football field. Everything was going fine, the grass and squirrels were appropriately frightened by the Ace of Indiana's awesome flying skills. Fingers were freezing. During a really low pass (6 foot off the deck), crisp, azure blue sky, setting sun glinting off the silver wings, I banked up, left and out to clear the football club house ... the CONCRETE football club house ... more like a bomb shelter ... BAM! CRUNCH! Tinkle. Plop ... Oops - cut it a little close. P-51 confetti! The squirrels were laughing. The concrete building looked unimpressed, but, I'd swear it smirked. I think the grass even chuckled. I picked up the shards that only moments ago had been a noble fighting machine and slunk back to my car. I shall return again, squirrels. I shall return.

Update to story: fixed the P-51. Week later. Same field, same conditions. Didn't hit the building this time but DID hit the wire running from a pole TO the building - imagine a 2" braided steel cable and a 24 oz. foam airplane traveling at 50-60 mph - sliced the Mustang into 5 pieces - ZINGGGG, plop, plop, plop, plop, plop. The squirrels fell out of the trees laughing.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Flying the Pitts. Beautiful day. Great flight. No wind. Lined up on the runway. Cut throttle. It floated down. Just before touchdown, slight up elevator. Oh crap! I wasn't over the runway. I was over the grass. The plane stopped dead. Broke the entire front end off the plane. So much for a perfect landing.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

2 nights ago I lost the battery hatch cover on my Pitts RC plane while flying at a friend's farm. I zig-zagged the farm fields, on foot for over an hour, looking for it. No luck.

LAST night, I looked at the field closer - it was planted - teensy-weensy green shoots ... I had tromped all over them the night before ... oops. The aliens might think I was sending them a message through a really poorly executed crop circle. More of a crop zig-zag. I hope I said something nice, something that would promote good will between our species like, "Hi there. Like Twinkies?"

Monday, June 6, 2011

Finally got the guts/experience to maiden this Pitts Model 12 15e RC plane this evening. 40" wing span. The setting sun reflecting off the glossy wings was a near spiritual moment. Four take-offs, four good landings - progress! Unfortunately I lost the battery hatch in flight and didn't see it fall off. So I zig-zagged the entire farm where I was flying trying to find it. No luck. I was afraid of rattlers - dusk, hot day, cooling off, prime snake time - a rabbit scared the crap put of me! No battery hatch though. Will have to fabricate one.

I was also taught the way of improvin' store-bought potato salad - adding boiled eggs … who'da known to do that?

And whiskey beans. We had beans with bourbon and brown sugar. I liked the beans (especially the bourbon flavor part)!

And to top off last night's meal? Texas sheet cake, of course. The only cake on the planet that gets better and better the longer it sits. Texas sheet cake is in its prime after about three days. That's why they're so damn big, so there's plenty left after 3 days. Betcha didn't know that, huh?

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

When I was a kid saying the Lord’s Prayer, I THOUGHT they were saying, “Lead us not into temptation...but deliver us from Boll Weevils...” considering what Boll Weevils look like, it wasn’t an unreasonable request for a kid ... and it WORKED – I have NEVER been attacked by a boll weevil!!! Thank you, Lord.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

No wind when I got home tonight, so took my little yellow plane out flying. Went to a football field across the street. A WIDE open football field. With two goal posts. Of course in all this HUGE, WIDE OPEN SPACE, I flew the plane directly into one of the goal posts. Goal posts, I learned, have a tendency to NOT move when hit by little, plastic planes. The plane moved, however, in about a thousand different directions. Glued the thousand pieces back together. And tried to get one more flight in for the night. Didn't notice that the wind had picked-up. IT FLEW!!! And it kept flying. Away. Far, far away. I lost sight of it. It's gone. I don't think this will be a case of "Lassie Come Home." It probably doesn't remember where I live. Hell I don't even remember where I live half the time.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Found a BEAUTIFUL flying field so took the Wild Hawk out for her maiden flight. Wide open field with one tree in it. I, of course, put the plane IN the one tree ... and spent 45 minutes poking it out of the tree with fishing rods taped together.

Never could get it to fly again though. It could never get enough lift to fly.

A family showed up and were watching as it repeatedly nose-dived into the ground, pieces flying everywhere. And the guy gets out of his car with his family ... with a plane ... I gave him the field ... his little plane SOARED into the heavens, circling and dipping and diving for a good 10 minutes. An INCREDIBLE flight equipped with a PERFECT damned landing.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

HHJH just ran a bit about A Clockwork Orange and it reminded me of a story:

My wife and friends and I were at a sci-fi convention years back and entered the First Annual 1 Mile Fun Run. Except we entered as Droogies from A Clockwork Orange. 6 fully-costumed Droogies, a guy dressed as a cow, a seriously drunken fellow and one serious runner (the guy that organized the run).

It was a mile run and quite a few of the non-participating sci-fi attendees showed up to watch the race. As it was only a one mile run, even out of shape, hung over and dressed like Stanley Kubrik characters, it shouldn't have taken us more than 15 minutes to "run" 1 mile ... except, being Droogies, we HAD to cheat! So about 100 yards away from the start/finish line, beyond view of the spectators, we, the Droogs, had a car waiting for us, filled with beer/whiskey. All but the serious runner and the cow jumped in the car and drove off to the half-mile mark. And there we parked and partied. In a couple of minutes the real (and only) runner showed up, angry because nobody was taking this seriously. We told him we were taking our drinking seriously, besides, the cow came hoofing over the hill several minutes after that. We ALL got drunk. For about a half hour.

We'd forgotten about the spectators at the start/finish line. Ooops. But they hadn't forgotten about us, got worried, and sent out a search/rescue party that found 6 drunk Droogs, a REALLY drunken previously drunken fellow, an inebriated cow and one tipsy, pissed-off runner. So the search party joined us ... yes, they sent out ANOTHER search party to search for us AND the earlier search party. The second search party met the same fate as the first one and got drunk with us too.

We all decided to offer the remaining spectators an exciting end of the race. So EVERYBODY piled into and onto the car, drove back up the hill, just barely out of site and then had the car chase us Droogs up the hill and off into an adjacent parking lot past, but not OVER the finish line. We never finished the race. The cow and the runner staged a wind sprint to the finish. The cow won. The drunk was passed-out in the back seat of the car. And the real runner? Well, his shorts were cute, but he was bested by Bessie.

The First Annual Fun Run was also the Last Annual Fun Run.

Damn Droogies spoiled ALL the fun by cheating. The organizer/runner refused to speak to any of us the rest of the weekend. I mean, getting beaten by a drunken, out of shape cow is likely not the highlight of any runner's career.

Monday, October 12, 2009

My Doc made me stay home from work for 3 days. Fortunately, I'm house- and grandson- sitting this week. My daughter and son have a GORGEOUS house. And in that house is a hot tub. And in that hot tub am I (said Sam I Am).

I thought the idea was that you work hard all your life and you can get little luxuries. Like a hot tub. As usual, my thinker's on the fritz. My house has an UGLY pink bathtub that's WAY too short for me. Did I mention that it is ugly? And the only bubbles in it would need to be provided by me.

I must be doing something wrong.

Engh...back to my temporary jaccuzi...ahhhhhhhhh. My doctor told me to relax. She didn't mention anything about comatose. So it must be OK.

PS. I'm writing this post on my iPhone while IN the bubbling hot tub - the iPhone I had to purchase after killing my original one by getting a tiny drop of water in one of the ports. Like I said, thinker's on the fritz.

PSS. New family policy - a spin off of the Foreign Exchange Student Program - all of our family members must now switch houses for one month at a time ... 'cept whoever gets Sue's and my house is kind of like volunteering for duty in Siberia.

So who cares ...

I'm an artist, so a bit off-center. My latest hobby is one from my childhood: model airplanes. But as boys get bigger, so do their toys, these are radio controlled. Some are smaller, some are are pretty darn big. But there are REALLY big ones available - I want those, of course. If you're ever looking for me, I'm either downstairs rebuilding planes or out at some field flying (or wrecking) them.
I've been plagued since birth by an imaginary villain I refer to as the Crazee Magnet. These are the chronicles of the Crazee Magnet and a look inside my extremely screwed-up way of looking at life.

My RC Fleet

These are always in a constant state of repair/disrepair. So there are only two or three flying at any one time.

E-flite Carbon-Z Yak 54

My absolute favorite plane to fly.

Great Planes Reactor Bipe .61

Been building this for a year. Saito 125 with Pitts smoke muffler. Should be sweet. Long, chunky biplane 58 inches long, 48 inch wingspan.

E-flite Pitts Model 12 15e

Gorgeous plane. First "real" plane I ever bought.

Hangar 9 P-51 PTS

This is a BEAUTIFUL, easy to fly plane. Wingspan is just shy of 5 feet so it has a real prescence on the field. My favorite nitro plane.

Great Planes Shoestring

Throwback to the older days of racers. GORGEOUS, foam with sheeting wings and fiberglass fuselage. Got an electric motor in it (Skorpion) big enough to power my KIA! Not ready to fly this one yet. Taking my time on the build.

Great Planes Combat Corsair

Still under construction.

Hangar 9 Twist

Old trim scheme - MUCH better than the new one below. I have both though.

Hangar 9 Twist

New trim scheme. Boring.

E-flite F-15 Eagle

My first jet. Under construction. Retractable landing gear are WAY COOL, but are driving me nuts trying to set them up! Twin EDF motors scare our dogs. Scare me too!

LA Racer

If I ever get this plane finished and can learn to keep the plane above ground, I'll be flying this one as a pylon racer. Will have Thunder Tiger Pro .40 up front.

E-flite P-40 Warkhawk

This tiny plane is a BLAST! With only a 25" wing span and 21" in length, I can fly it across the street at the park. It's fun doing imaginary strafing runs on trash cans and other such targets of evil.

Zlin 40

Under construction. Will have OS 55 up front.

Parkzone P-51, modified

Awesome foamie! I've replaced the motor with a Power 10, 40 amp esc and 2200mAh 3s. It moves.

Parkzone F4U Corsair

Constantly flying and breaking this beautiful foam bird.

Parkzone T28 480 size and UMX

Have both of these. I did most of my newbie training on the larger one. EASY plane to fly.

Great Planes Extra 330SC

SUPER FUN to fly!!! Unfortunately, I flew it into the ground. It not fly no mo.

Electrifly Yak 54

Flew great until the manufacturer's crappy clevises failed. Boom. It's a mess.

Parkzone Edge 300

Ooops. This one hit a goal post. The goal post didn't move. The plane did. In about 6 different directions. Gone, probably won't be replaced. Pretty squirrelly plane to fly.